


Pick Your Own Word For Goodbye

by CampionSayn



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond, DCU
Genre: 5+1 Things, Damian Wayne is a pseudo-asshole, Harley Quinn is a New York type Power Mom, Multi, One Year to Love!verse, This Our Clandestine Romance!verse, healing hands/helping hands_, hurt/comfort all for the feels basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1791823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here is the difference between being a pessimist and an optimist: when something tears, it can be mended or it can be thrown away. Like the liner in a coffee maker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aloha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Twilight_Shadow_Songs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Shadow_Songs/gifts).



_-:-_  
 _I want to be with someone who has experienced having a broken heart. So they know exactly how it feels and won’t break mine._  
 _-HpLyrikz at Tumblr_

* * *

  
Aloha. i.

It should utterly and absolutely be impossible that a woman _(that has to oversee and order around hundreds of Jokerz amd take care of a crazy person that was often times as powerful as a cabal leader but with the impulse control of a gambling addict)_ of strong headedness and sureness should burn toast because of wandering thoughts, but it did happen sometimes and at seven in the morning this particular time.

Harley cursed and battered one of her kitchen aprons against the toaster _(if one of the boys walked in to give her another status report on the gang war going on around them while she was in nothing but a way-too-big white shirt that looked like it belonged to that mermaid's prince in that Disney movie and her ugly-ass yellow underwear because they didn't want to give the up-date to Joker himself, she would scream)_ and tried not to breathe in the charcoal colored smoke until she got a window open. The destroyed toast sat angry and rejected in the stainless steel sink.

“Worthless woman, honestly,” she grumbled when she'd turned and pried the window of the kitchen across from the sink open _(chips of white paint from Joker's last assault on some of the new blood fluttered onto her hands, only fluttering away and onto the tiled floor when she waved her hands into the space between the scene of the accident and the opening of fresh air; some made noise on impact with the tile and some didn't, but none of them were noticed enough in a way that could possibly matter in just that time)_ and then spun on her heel to leave until the clouds removed themselves in the windsweep that came, always, from stillness without anyone there to see it, “Can't even feed yourself without screwing up.”

Crossing the long hallways from kitchen to the king suit that she and Joker shared _(she had stopped calling him Jack at about the time it became dreadfully apparent that he hated that and that the name was shared with a lot of people he didn't like—including but not limited to some do-gooders cross-country that were on Bruce Wayne's list of little helpers and that reporter that Harley truthfully found moderately charming as long as he was on his meds and didn't find a way into a five-foot radius of her person and had his reporter friend with the creepy way of remaining completely stoic around like a leash for a dog—as well as when their marriage devolved from one of love, or lust, into one of need and convenience)_ when he actually slept, the blonde mother of twins hopped over her hyenas in the passage near the staircase, contemplating which of her perfumes would successfully get rid of the smell of burning that would cling to her hair for the largest portion of the day after leaving.

“Late, late, late,” she bemoaned, ascending the stairs and thinking that, while she hated the smell because it only really worked with women over fifty and she a while to go before that birthday came knocking, roses and lilacs would be the perfume to get rid of smoke, “I'll just pick up some takeout. Don't know why I'm trying to cook anyway when there's a schedule to keep and places to go and—shit! Dry cleaning!”

The elder of the hyenas, Bud, lifted his head when their mistress hopped over them _(his nose crinkled upwards like a dog's would—if he and his brother were even remotely part of the canine family; and god help any of the kids that called them 'puppy' or 'doggy' or 'pooch' when they were in earshot without losing a finger—at the smell clinging to her skin that was still half-wet from her morning shower)_ and followed her figure moving up the staircase with his eyes and his head like absently watching a squirrel outside the window cross a lawn and then go up a tree.

His ears tilted back and his eyes closed in empathy when the words 'Dry cleaning' flew down the staircase and the door to the master's room slammed shut with her whining like an emotional teenager.

Giving the closest thing that a hyena could give for a grumble _(it was something like a whine that vibrated on a low frequency and hissed like a big cat)_ and knocking his head back a moment, Bud got up from the warmth of Lou and made his way up the stairs, tail swaying lazier than a dog's, getting ready for an hour of making sure the mistress remembered to get properly dressed for the day. The last time he ignored her being this out of it after ruining her breakfast _(and wasn't that a tragedy with the eggs looking like some mutant mushrooms sticking to the inside of the microwave when that reporter went off his nut and brought her a bouquet of pink carnations and purple columbine)_ she had walked out of the front door half dressed—everything from her feet to her hips, but only her bra from the neck down; she'd screamed when she'd gotten to the docks and realized her mistake, the Jokerz with her had been too shocked to go near her again for a week—and missing her keys and wallet.

No need to do that more than once, since she had spooked the lowest ranking hyena among them _(Lou did not begrudge any human that wanted to look like their kind, but Bud wasn't one to spare feelings and made a point of straight-up gawking at... Woof, right; dog word...)_ and his rather pale friend that consistently smelled of papers and the inside of a-not-all-that-tidy car _(though the smells that had started to cling to him weren't too bad; he smelled happier and like someone the master didn't like but their mistress didn't hold much ill will toward since he'd mated with Miss Kitty-Cat)_ as well as that disgusting coffee swill.

Bud walked through the door just as Harley tripped over one of her heeled shoes and made a noise a tea-kettle would envy on her way face-first to the floor.

Long day ahead, no doubt.


	2. Adios

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be afraid of the little things pets bring in as a gift.

_-:-_   
_I'm so glad that I'll never fit in._   
_That will never be me._   
_-P!nk._

* * *

  
_Adios_. ii.

“Okay, try not to move too much... You can run, but you can't hide...”

Sharp fingernails that could rip a hole through Andy's hand if they wanted to tightened on the edge of the sofa and Helena squirmed from her position with her head hanging over the edge, hair waving down at the sheet of plastic laid out on the floor to catch member of the infestation Scorn had been trying to help his girlfriend get rid of since she'd stalked into his place that morning, jittery as hell and holding a paper bag full of all the medications needed to get rid of the little vermin.

“If you're going to talk, either aim towards me or towards the freakin' lice—please.”

The blonde young man leaning over Helena snorted deep and almost profound in a way only a person growing up the way he had could actually do. Sort of like the way a person like him only let little quirks show around people he trusted—his number one currently putting herself at his mercy as he traced the file comb Helena had brought along through her dark hair, his big fingers careful not to tug on her scalp too hard as his eyes traced the lining of skin the showed with each movement.

Poor Helena. Just like her mother, she tended to let cats from the wild or from back alleys wander through her home and while it warmed Andy up considerably more than most things to know that she was just so wonderful to all living things _(even the brothers in her family that drove her up the wall and made her voice rise up to such agonizing pitch that it was good to keep a pillow handy to place over the ears)_ it had led to bad situations a lot when they brought her presents in gratitude. Most of them brought dead rats or birds and stuff that, when left for too long, brought flies and beetles, but some of the meowing buddies of the Kyle's brought other things; last week, one of them brought Helena a tiny little doll no bigger than the hand of an adult and left it on her pillow.

Wherever the doll came from, it wasn't the best gift really.

“Don't be so grouchy,” Andy grinned wide and warm, gloved hands pulling out a single hair with a rather large louse holding tight to the end tag that still had her skin attached, a little egg bobbing further away from it, “If you were a little dirtier, this wouldn't a be a problem.”

“Excuse me?!”

Andy bent his knees and let his head duck to the left before the minor swing Helena took at him could make contact. The hair he was holding dropped to the plastic along with the others snug inside and lightly coated with the bleach he'd sprayed before setting up shop, “You have the cleanest, smoothest hair in the whole city, I'd bet. Anyone who's ever gone to public school would know that for lice, no dirt, no dandruff and no dye is a five star paradise resort. It means that they can eat your skin and drink your blood infinitely easier. Also makes it perfect to find a place to lay eggs.”

Shaking again with nerves and agitation that her boyfriend was probably right about this _(hello—he spent more time on the street than she did her whole life, how would he not know more about disgusting things such as head vermin?)_ and teasing her about, Helena reached over from where her arms were resting, grabbing at the coffee table with the large napkin she'd set in place of a coaster; her grip sure and certain on the water bottle of of mulled spice wine she'd snuck from the family cellar _(she had head lice—one of the number one problems among children—screw her brothers when they found the bottle shattered in the gravel near their front gate)_ when she took a swig and then placed it back on the napkin.

When she drank actual alcohol, she tended to let it sit and gather perspiration. Each time she lifted it, she set it down in one of three spots.

Andy loved that by the end of this, when he went to throw the napkin away with the lice and plastic cover, the rings from the drink sweat would doubtlessly look like one of those old Irish rings that probably belonged to Arthurian legends about the Round Table and all that.

The John Lennon that Andy had put on before Helena had come over was still spilling out the echo that was and forever should be, _“So Darlin, darlin!”_ which drove the cat lover crazy, that day being no exception when Andy dropped the comb onto the plastic, satisfied that he'd done all he could picking away manually. Now was the really gross part and he pressed Helena back down before she tried to lift her head and let the blood flow back into a normal fashion.

“While you're playing doctor, could you at least turn that shit off?” The little lady asked, knees curling towards her stomach like a pill bug and then reaching forward in the figure of a ballet dancer trying to stretch into a bound so she could spin half a dozen times; her skinny feet with the dark, marble green nail polish starting to fade _(Andy had applied it when she'd slept over a little after the incident with a building going 'boom!' while he was inside of it and he'd tried to make her lighten up—it had worked for about five minutes and he was still surprised that the color was there after such a long time)_ some of the absolutely cutest things that Andy found he could look at forever, “And set up something that doesn't suck?”

The coat that she'd hung up int he entryway swished when he moved by it and into the kitchen, finding the shower cap Helena had brought along and going to fill it with olive oil and mayonnaise _(disgusting as it was and as much as he didn't like the thought of her smelling like a badly made sandwich while she staked out on his sofa, she insisted that if this was to be done, it was being done right)_ that he'd put in the front of his fridge after she'd pulled them out of the bag and told him his job as pest control for the day, “Hel, if it were up to you, we'd be listening to Hello Dolly or Miley Cyrus.”

“One time! One time—and I thought it was an older Disney soundtrack that was macked up for remix by the bandstand company—you know that, Andy!”

“Not at the time did I know, did I?”

“So?!”

“So I'm going to keep rolling with that until the wheels fall off.”

Mayo mixed with olive oil was quite possibly less attractive than that thing that Helena's little brother had forced them to drink once after he went shopping for his boyfriend _(good luck getting them not to laugh mentally at that image each time it came up—a brunette bombshell and a lanky-tall-slinky zombie looker; no)_ and came back with a sample for them to try, but frankly, not by a whole lot.

Andy cringed and held the shower cap at arm's length back to where Helena was bemoaning fate and how she was going to personally put all of her cats through the washing machine the next time they brought her an unexpected gift; his own blonde hair tightly held in a black bandanna often seen hanging around his girlfriend's neck _(before she was infested, thank God—she'd left it behind after he'd immediately come back from the hospital and celebrated in a most... personal sense)_ and a little trace of olive oil along his jaw where he'd scratched his stubble and forgotten his condiment covered gloves.

“I would like to die after this, please,” she groaned, spying the cap and closing her eyes to pretend it wasn't there.

Heedless of the actual consequences and well aware that Helena secretly liked it, Andy bent so his lips lined up with Helena's neck and gave it a little wet line after tracing it with his tongue from the incline of her collar bone and up to the point of her chin.

His tongue re-entered his mouth tasting like salt, sweat and the expensive perfume Helena indulged in for the sake of what tiny amount of vanity she had, but it was totally worth the curved smile it caused her.

...And the hand of hers that left the cushions and found the way under his Rob Zombie shirt, beyond his faded jeans and onto the skin leading down from his belly-button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to be so late on this coming back again, but I really, really, really hate this computer. And I don't know so much about this particular pairing the dedicated author picked out, so I just kind of had to wing it with something fluffy and creepy—which when you really think about it, fits these two a whole lot.


	3. Cheerio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relationships sometimes break and you can't move back. Unless there's luggage involved. And that's not always good or bad.

_-:-_  
I met a moth the other night, who loved to play with fire;  
he was trying to break in to a hundred watt bulb  
to fry himself on a wire.  
-Shinbone Alley.

* * *

  
  
**Cheerio, iii-:-**  
  
[ _There is a forehead other than his own, butting against his skull. Tucked bangs of cream wheat color, soft and vibrant against his skin, attractive and repulsive in contrast to his own sunless flesh and mortician envied hair. It feels as if he is watching something with his skin_ _ **(blind people who lost their sight when little and innocent had such sensation)**_ _he had seen when he was little and his mother wasn't so much of a heartless_ _ **(“Cunt?” “Naw, those are someplace warm and soft and comfortable. Bitch fits better—defined as a female dog or a woman of low standing. Wouldn't you agree?”)**_ _wreck.  
  
A baby goat touching with indignation and love to another that was bigger or littler—affection and affliction without human horror—oh...Oh....Oh...Ooooohhh!]_  
  
“--Sugar, wake up; break's over and costumers are coming in. Mister Wayne will be here soon, too, so you need to start the evening's special.”  
  
Carter “Terminal” jolted a little from his position of his head cradled in his arms atop one of the actually quite clean tables in the break room that he'd wandered into after Ghoul had come in earlier before heading off to do his paper route in that car that was miraculously clean and would stay that way until his boyfriend said otherwise and handed him something that he was dreading getting for quite some time which hadn't come and he'd let his guard down and then there it was in his white-knuckled hands; he'd looked at him much more emotionally than he ever did or even had the right to _(“Sorry, she caught me by surprise and then just left; I didn't want to pry with her sister right there,”)_.  
  
His _(still, after only an hour, and would remain until he ate something and felt moderately more himself and less wretched)_ red-rimmed eyes looked up to his boss, nodding and quietly tightening a little over the box he'd been given. He'd be in as soon as he made himself back into something presentable to their customers, and he didn't have to say it aloud as Abby just nodded sympathetically and walked back out to handle an order of seven Black Bottom iced teas and three Ginger Lady Bermuda coffees a large group of rambunctious and poser oriented college students had ordered five minutes ago.  
  
When the door clicked behind her _(the wood groaned a little as well from being slammed over time and begging to be given some wood finish so it wouldn't ruin and drop from the almost ornamental hinges holding it in place)_ and he was alone again, Terminal took in a deep breath and brought his hands to his face; long fingers touching the edges of his eyes and removing whatever moisture and crap remained after he'd fallen asleep. The insufferable feeling of abandonment he'd slowly been killing with the newly found interest in a certain rich man _(the money aspect would follow that statement forever and echo the words “gold digger” in a sequestered area of his brain that belonged to his shitty childhood, but there was nothing he could do for that but smother it under the fact that currency of monetary value still seemed ridiculous to him in this day and age)_ growing back like weeds in a newly renovated garden as he looked back into the box Ghoul had delivered from Deidre.  
  
He wanted to vomit at the sight of some of the most important things to remember their relationship being tucked softly and perfectly _(oh, he hated how they were alike in those regards—everything had its place, in sickness and in health, in feast or famine, in joy or in tragedy that couldn't be avoided)_ into a box that was no bigger than the heavy sorts that one found at shoe stores designed not to break to easily during delivery—soft, see-through paper dredging the bottom of the box still like a bad joke. But he couldn't bring up anything; he'd already emptied his stomach earlier and if he did the dirty deed again the acid would start to burn away important things like enamel and his taste buds, or something.  
  
Terminal, just to make sure everything was there and he hadn't knocked anything out with his hands wandering like they so often did in his sleep, traced his fingers into the box like a milkmaid would have done two-hundred years ago going through grains in a barrel and fisting her hand to toss the bits to cows and chickens.  
  
The cherry colored bottle half full of sand from when they'd won that beach competition a few years ago ( _the rules were to build a sand creature with the prompt that it must be fantasy based—she'd used white sand to sculpt a seven foot tall, mutated orchid mantis with a Victorian girdle and hairstyle, while he'd used black ore sand to create a humanoid grasshopper playing a ukelele with a train conductor's hat perched on his head)_ sat in the middle, safe from breaking if the walls of the box hit something. The bottle had a scarf of indigo silk and black constellations of Orion and Capricorn printed on both ends wound around the bottom of it; a fancy gift Deidre had gotten him after he'd been taken the first time to visit and talk to the girl he'd put into a coma. Pictures of the couple and many of the other Jokerz _(Polaroids, expensive from the industry going down due to digital photography, but worth every penny)_ were bound up with a ribbon Terminal and Deidre occasionally shared when their relationship deepened but was mostly used by Carter because Deidre's hair was too long _(and therefore, too heavy)_ for the yellow silk.  
  
Love letters he'd written her _(twice when he was drunk off his ass after talking with his mother and feeling affectionate in the worst possible way [short of sexual assault, of course] and once when he'd been in the hospital with wounds that should have dropped him off the face of the earth he'd written while on morphine)_ were tucked into the envelopes they'd been given in. And four pieces of jewelry that they also shared from time to time.  
  
Before he started getting way too emotional for work hours again, Terminal picked up the lid to the box and closed it shut with finality that wasn't like that at all, but would have to do until he figured out what to do with it after work.  
  
It tucked into the bottom shelf in his locker a bit too perfectly, and it angered him for a reason he wouldn't like to have gotten into. He slammed the door to the locker closed to make him forget himself thinking absently, _'It seems to fit like it belongs in some place dark, tight and made to keep things hidden.'_  


* * *

  
  
The evening special matched Terminal's mood to a 'T' and Damian Wayne looked down at what he'd ordered with mixed feelings about whether he should just keep his thoughts to himself and eat the food or ask what the hell was going on.  
  
“Temporary Blitz” was the special Abby convinced Damian was better than it sounded on the menu and he'd believed her little humble speech about how Carter had been working on it for almost a week; right up and until it was set down in front of him on the deep, duck egg blue colored plate with the prints of Morning Glories in the middle, the glasses usually used for sparkling water with lemon being set beside it and filled with the beverage recommended for the food staring up at the heir to Wayne.  
  
A deep fried Tarantula was the centerpiece, circled rather precariously by silver dollar sized cut sushi with fried and spiced koi fish topping each one _(toothpicks kept them in place, each with a piece of red plastic made to remind the customer not to swallow the sharp wood)_ and two sunny-side-up Robin eggs set into a sour sauce and onion juice cooked eel, sprinkled with red ants. Amber Lace was the drink Damian sipped from before venturing to do anything else, the taste of Red Oolong tea with organic honey a very welcome taste on the end of his tongue.  
  
From over his shoulder, swallowing the mouthful of his drink, the brunette man settled his eyes on Terminal working himself hard and a frown deeply ribbed into his lips as he took orders from the girls manning the tables as the dinner crowd came in—almost all of them avoiding the special, save for some of the Hipsters that looked like drop-out from the '80's that found a portal into the future.  
  
Terminal flinched a little when his hand unexpectedly touched the handle of a frying pan that had been heated too much and gripped the red fingers with his others hands. It looked for a moment that he would put them into his mouth to cool them down with his saliva, but he turned his head and met eyes with probably his least favorite customer and ceased the action at the half-way mark, stuffing the hand into one of the pockets of his chef's apron.  
  
Damian made a point, while the younger man was looking his way, to take his knife and fork, rend the Tarantula on his plate in three sections of body parts and stick two legs and half the head into his mouth.  
  
 _Chew_. **Crunch**. _Chew_. _Chew_. _**Swallow**_.  
  
Damian grinned at the little flinch he got from Terminal all the way from across the shop and considered it a small victory at the extremely light dusting of a blush _(like the cheap stuff actor's in horror films use at the very beginning of the movie before sweating and bleeding ruins the effect)_ that tinted the dyed brunette's ears.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten Thousand apologies for taking so long to up-date. It seems that for this chapter, I lost my notes, I lost the time, I deleted pieces at least once and I actually think this lacked a certain something. But, it's here, right?


	4. Adieu. iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no explanation why some people do what they do... Sometimes they just do things and we are either grateful or despise them all the more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh-heh; sorry this took forever. On top of writing this and the next two chapters at the same time, I got jury duty notice in the mail and stomach flu—neither of which are fun to deal with at the same time in one week.

_-:-_   
_I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, 'the happiness that attends disaster.' Or: 'the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.'_   
_-Jeffrey Eugenides._

* * *

 

**Adieu. iv-:-**

_Blood settled into the cove that is and always will be the bottom of the throat leading from the Adam's Apple of a young man, unless it is cut free...The line of the shoulder escaping into the hip and cascading forth into the knee... Gristle underneath the skin of the human snout that has, indeed, been cracked against with fist and fingers and underside of palm many times..._

Ghoul's blond hair _(a lovely thing; none of the girls seemed to understand why he thought adding more color to it would change how handsome the French-American already was)_ waved in singlet grace, held together with the rough cord he used to tie it some mornings, in a goodbye gesture as the man himself turned about face from the rubble of the building he loathed. Hushed grumblings echoed behind him as well as the clang of the metal rods and dynamite he'd been sent by Joker to deliver post-haste to his most recent failing, left for another crew to set up and light up.

“Fuck it... let you get caught... I've got better things to do.”

_Shuffled footfalls like a courageous lamb in the broken wreck of a canyon... Tapered yellow that alludes to softness not found in short strands...Blue bright as La Luna above a clean ocean that fails in perspective to reason against sharpened spring leaves almost burning green from aggressive evening sunlight..._

“Oh my sweet zombie Christ—Father will kill you both!”

A flurry of delight in sound chirped down from the rafters half ruined and half still standing with the same voice, but in different understanding, “Dad never killed anyone for having too good a time. You know that, Dee Dee.”

_Two stomachs filled with the aftermath of lunch at a mostly unhealthy fast food joint... Underneath was smoother that the one soft and limber on top, but only because there was no feeling of nausea that came from eating more than one bacon burger with its thick flesh turned to grease and calories that weren't meant to coexist with a body so strong and healthy... Flustered happiness that doesn't get out nearly often enough makes itself known in the way a longer pointer finger with a better tan hooks around the smaller with decreased melanin that ran in the bloodline of such a small family..._

The younger of the twins that the one man in the ruined building liked less than the one using him as a pillow after using him for workout equipment for many hours of of the previous day—or was it night? His view of time screwed over and up once the midnight hour changed hands over the ticks of mechanics—made her way over in her comfy clothing _(a most pathetic sight she was; Delia wouldn't let herself be caught dead in a knit black turtleneck, ratty denim jeans and straw sandals actors wore in biblical or 1970's hippie reproduction films)_ in an effort to be intimidating.

“Oh, I'm sorry Dee Dee, you're right, I'm wrong,” she continued on as neither her sister or her sister's designated lover/boyfriend/personal objectified boy-toy deigned to move from their languid positions in the hammock they'd somehow managed to rig from one barely standing wall to another that looked like it had been attacked by the ghost of Stephen King's Carrie, passing under them _(twelve feet off the ground had to be a record in hammock hanging)_ and grabbing their clothes they'd left tossed haphazardly under them; she did not look up in an effort to avoid the sight of J-Man's ass through the checkered cording holding their weight, “Mom's gonna kill you and father will just pay to ship your bodies to Antarctica.”

“We just wanted to give a last salute to the old homestead before it becomes absolutely nothing but boring. A kind of 'Thanks for playing, even though someone made you try and kill us and stuff!'”

J-Man's pants hit him in the face for his effort of clearing up the painted picture of what was happening in the younger's head, Delia snorting into his chest and, as the a scintilla of an after-thought, gave his previously abused left nipple a brief squeeze between two of her canines. He felt the briefest—weren't those the most delicious kinds—twitch of pain and pleasure descend from exterior to interior and giggled; all of his toes curled into the hammock.

_Fingernails chipped from work and play, painted the oddest and surreal of colors... A Greek pantheon's ambrosia cornucopia of ideas sneaking in through holes in the psyche existing because of cleverness and the feeling of nothing to lose... Painter's specialist ink silted in the bottom of a glass marble so it looks blue, but changes to pale green when inclined just so..._

J-Man smiled wide enough to mimic the Joker, lips not quite the right color, even if he was indeed wearing his favorite makeup and the Ruby Tuesday lipstick he paid top price for online when he came face to face with the boss or had a...special kink night...of sorts... with Delia; Delia's fingers pulling his pants off of his face and shimmying into them herself—ass much brighter and smaller than his in them.

“Uh-huh, yeah, right,” the snide comment drifted up, tightened knuckles ramming into the curve of J-Man's spine to get the both of them properly moving when Deidre swung red Daisy Dukes shorts, a Bladerunner trench coat, a white **'The teachers lied in third grade, I _NEVER _ use cursive' **spaghetti strap belly shirt with the exclamation ironically written in longhand calligraphy, a mockery of prison orange scrubs hoodie, one **'What's the Use of Crying?'** army gray apparel and both of their set of shoes _(pro for the both of them having enough sense to dress in boots when coming to the site of the bomb that left more than half of their mutual friends with lingering markers for PTSD)_ so that neither of them had time to get all grabby-ass with each other until they were all back outside and she was at least a whole city block away from them, “Get dressed and get out. I will buy you a new hammock if you will just, pretty-fucking-please, leave so that I can leave word with the people father hired to down the place to do their job.”

“Mob guys, Dee Dee?”

“Albanians, Dee Dee. I don't think any of us wanna see them get impatient—what is that smell?”

J-Man let Delia take his trench-coat but held tight to his apparel and shoes and avoided eye contact with Deidre canting her head up and down sniffing the air left and right as he slid into the much-too-large-but still-his-girlfriend's hoodie, barely squeezing into her shorts while Delia slid off of him and started tying her boots on _(they had a tendency to do this; wear each others clothes and freaking out anyone near them when they walked the streets day and night)_ while waving absently over to a pair of industrial sized barrels she and J-Man had stolen from Chinese restaurants that would have gotten a tax right-off donating them for bio-friendly fuel.

“Used frying pan greases,” the older twin smiled, nimbly sliding off the hammock and making J-Man fall to the dusty ground because of the loss of equilibrium the hanging bed couldn't handle; they'd cleared away the absolutely-too-sharp rubble beneath them thank god, so he didn't scream from pieces of rock and cement piercing his shoulders and spine, though he did groan from having the wind knocked out of him, “We were gonna light the place up after we were done anyway.”

_The inability to choose whether to be angry or grateful that comes from years of antagonism stuffed into hormone fueled challenges... Suffered breathing exhaled to join thousands of other breaths that came before it, whether in happiness, rage, fear, joy or lust so that the reason mattered not a bit... The absolute point of the father's favorite play, The Harlequin, where the actors change their masks, their costumes, their parts to please the gods..._

Realization of the much bigger boom to come smattered the three faces in the hollow of a bad memory room; Dee Dee sighing in defeat to bend over and pick up the billowy red scarf the older sister wore for aesthetics to put it where it now belonged around J-Man's neck, yanking it a little tighter than needed to go with the even tighter smile that didn't show her teeth. J-Man cheeky in the receiving of the scarf and showing half his teeth as he back rolled to end up beside his Dee Dee, tying to completion the other laces of her shoe so she didn't lose it when they probably ended up doing something else to please themselves later; his big right hand reaching up to also button his trench-coat (a bulky, safe feeling protection from earth's annoyances) so it would hide her bust from the sun that would scorch her into oblivion given the chance. Dee Dee hummed through teeth as her boy hooked their arms and they were both pushed from the room and into the open _('Gah, sunlight...bastard...')_ away from the probability of being some gross mixture of body parts, rubble and Chinese leftovers.

The two and one exited the property quickly to let the hired Russian-adjacent thugs Joker had hired do their jobs; one going off to find Ghoul and hand him over something she had been meaning to return to her previous important someone for a while; J-Man and Delia deciding to follow after her out of not wanting to be around for another explosion too close to themselves and also, out of needing a ride and the younger having the only transport nearby that wasn't a city bus that actually required money rather than a threat or a bribe.

_Metal piping slamming hard and fast into the ground , revolving in clockwise motions like torture inducing needles into a giant's skin... Cylinders of orange, curdled gunpowder bound like sausages and corded twine sad and weeping from their ends as they were stuffed into hollowed ground made from the pipes... A match struck..._

The dust from the explosion exhaled in not-quite-a-perfect circle for five city blocks.


	5. Auf wiedersehen. v

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hospitals are naturally creepy places. Even if you are there for an especially good reason.

_-:-_   
_Clean cup! Clean cup! Move down, move down, move down!_   
_-Alice in Wonderland._

* * *

 

**Auf wiedersehen. v-:-**

Bone dust is quite possibly a most dangerous material in and of itself, just floating around hospitals after doctors crack and saw wide cuts of meat a body that might or might have not been worth saving or salvageable to begin with. After a person dies, however, it gets exponentially worse. Especially if the dust disperses outside of a morgue with a trained specialist doing the cutting.

Dick was going to get a very good lawyer to sue the owner and building manager of one Shaggy Rogers' apartment for renting out to an extremely upper-class doctor that shouldn't have even been near a building like that and not asking questions about why he didn't have construction permits for an entire stainless steel operating theater and a triple sized freezer _(Babs had gone through the roof when she'd walked into the place herself, helping to serve the warrant and nearly vomiting when she saw two uncut corpses picked over with markers for what was to be taken out; twelve shelves full of Ziploc sealed already chopped up organs, limbs, bones and such waiting to be sold across seas or over to the black market)_ that took the place of what was once the master bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and half the living room. How could a person sitting at the front of the building, watching everyone leave or stay, notice that the man was bringing in overly sized packages and kept his apartment just above freezing? It was reckless and negligent and—Dick slipped and braced the wall just to the left of his friend's hospital room.

Hospitals were never fun. It was terrific that they were kept clean and all that, but when you couldn't see a half wet floor because of the rubber-white colored tiles just after a janitor swept by, it was a bit of a problem.

At least he didn't drop the coffee and tea with the small box of extra sugary, diabetes inducing donuts.

Straightening up from the Charlie Chaplin moment he was in, Dick knocked twice and opened the door without even waiting for a reply. It wasn't like he ever waited when Shaggy was in the hospital for what had become normal reasons as time went on _(picking up pain meds for his practically worthless leg, getting his blood worked up after being on a case that was in questionable places with debris and disgusting animals and insects, going to the acupuncturist for a better chance at sleeping for a week straight with no nightmares, etc,)_ so he wouldn't change their positions when he was in for something that could be dangerous.

“Might not want to come too close,” Shaggy stated in the bittersweet sarcasm that had become a part of his verbal warning system when he had been off his pain meds for cleaning out his blood and such when he went to the hospital for something infectious that might cling on otherwise, “I could be contagious.”

Dick had to do a double-take at the sight of the detective in his sterile white bed surrounded by his personal laptop, twelve paperwork folders for cases he had been working for weeks and months on _(two of them Dick recognized after joshing the man over trying to figure out something in Louisiana that involved mutated cat hair and fourteen missing people in the middle of gator country stuffed in a pink folder—never let it be said that Shaggy's special lady wasn't full of humor in private—and another folder that was half falling off the rotating table attached to the nearby desk filled with information about a boarding house closer to Canada that a neighboring school—military looky-loo teens and their commanding officer, but to Shaggy money was money—reported exhibiting extremely suspicious behavior that involved men coming and going once a month in the middle of the night)_ and surrounded by hand wipes and tissues he'd attempted to toss into the waste basket but not quite making it.

Dick remembered that this was actually kinda normal for Shaggy in this particular and unwanted environment, so he just shut the door and went to move some of the case files so the donuts and hot caffeine had somewhere stable to sit, “Huh, Crystal was right. You are crabby this early in the morning.”

“So it was Crystal who called you here? I'm _fine_. I might have been in the apartment directly below that whack-job with the connection to power tools and poor ventilation, but that doesn't mean I have to have visitors when I'm gonna be gone by tomorrow--”

“Technically, Crystal only _tried_ to call me,” Dick interrupted before his hippie friend could start venting frustration in a higher pitch that would make him rattle and make his ruined leg ache from tremors, “She tried and she almost made it, but it was the manor's phone and Terry thought it might be his boyfriend's new cell number—apparently he keeps losing phones left and right like an ADD cheerleader—and picked up. Then he got sucked into Crystal's yelling for me to get over to see you for, like, five minutes, not saying a word, before hunting me down and chucking the phone at me. Actually I'm only here because I got her saying which room you were in here before she hung up to take Scooby and Amber to a hotel.”

Shaggy paused in his rapid-fire typing on the laptop to lift an eyebrow at his old friend, “How pissed is your brother at losing his heartstrings over listening to Crystal when he thought it was... the guy?”

“I'm considering bribing Matt to make sure Terry doesn't plant anything in my room, or car or something. It seems his special friend actually called during the time Crystal was freaking out over the possibility of you getting cancer from inhaling whatever toxic crap might have made it into your apartment from the vents in the building. I just didn't hear the little beep. And here I am. Hiding out. With you.”

Shaggy snorted at the thought of Dick hiding from anyone, but he couldn't blame him. Anyone that came from Bruce Wayne's loins probably had quite the vicious streak to go with the good looks he'd noticed the kid having.

* * *

 

“I didn't think I'd be smuggling you out of here within an hour.”

The cane in the scraggly haired brunette's hand clipped the stairs as he took each one carefully, but briskly. His laptop was snuggly in the black satchel bag he'd slung over his shoulder after his friend had assisted him _(though, may he shoot the head of who-so-ever mentioned it to anyone else; the PI still had just enough pride to take offense at other people's wretched opinions)_ in getting out of the scrubs the doctors had decked him in and into the jeans and green hoodie Crystal had left in case her dearest tried to skip out anyway. The grey slippers from the nurses were all he had to walk in, but he wasn't going to care as long as he didn't step in glass or gravel when they finally got out of this hive of the sick and the injured, the dying or the walk-aways.

“Hey, the doctor said I'm fine, so I can get out of here now or later, but I'd rather not have to make Crystal help me remove my stuff.”

“But you're fine making me do it?”

Shaggy poked one of Dick's arms full of the case files they'd hauled up after stealing an extra-large white trash bag from a janitorial cart, finger barely sinking in from the sturdy muscle honed and sturdy from years of acrobats and running around and whatever the hell he did with Barbara that Shaggy preferred not to know about, “I think you can handle the pressure better than she could.”

Dick took four steps further down the staircase to wait for his friend on the entrance into the floor where pregnant women were screaming about forceps and _“give me some drugs”_ and fathers were either waiting in the halls, pacing, calling family or following their wives into the room with a camera that was probably just going to make the women even angrier—also, of course, it was the floor with the elevator that wouldn't go to Shaggy's floor because of some electrical kink with the buttons in the metal box, “It's you saying stuff like this that makes people think we're gay.”

“No, it's us looking so good together that make people think we're gay. Like those guys in Chelsea that can afford apartments that don't have psychos chopping people up and allow dogs without paying an extra hundred dollars on the deposit.”

“Thought you said you only paid fifty for Scooby and Amber?”

“I did, but then the concierge dropped in the first week we moved in to give us the keys to the laundry room when we weren't in but the dogs were. It was spring and Amber was moody and wired and, well, the guy ended up needing a reason not to press charges.”

Dick flinched at the thought. Amber was usually the biggest, sweat-heart of a dog, which made her perfect for Scooby-Doo on so many levels that they would fit in perfectly in all those old-fashioned black and white Hallmark cards, but when her time of the year came to wreak havoc on her hormones, she could get pretty wild. There were occasions that Shaggy would actually ask him to take the huge Great Dane to Wayne Manor so nothing bad could happen to him if the Retriever was in her last cycle and was building up to her increasingly aggressive outbursts.

Shaggy limped the last few steps and walked through the door to maternity-in-progress as Dick held it open. Both of them scrunched their nose at the smell that was quite different from where they had just come from three floors up. Recovery smelled like old people and bleach, Shaggy's floor smelled just clean since most of the people were just being checked out in case they had infections or diseases they might not have been aware of; the floor they'd just bypassed smelled of soap and the oxygen tanks surgeons wheeled in as they prepared to treat their patients. Maternity actually smelled almost pleasant, like full bouquets of flowers at all the nursing stations waiting for delivery and caramel candies... and bowls full of excrement, urine and thickened blood that came with pushing out a new human through an orifice close to two others that made most unpleasant materials.

Dick liked places like this because of all the freely felt, beautiful energy buzzing off the fathers ready to meet their new daughters or sons, a stark difference to his home life unless he was with Babs or Matt since recently. His eyes flickered around at all the pink and blue and some of the painted ducklings and balloons on every wall _(except the delivery rooms, which were all painted green so the doctors didn't smack into a solid, immovable surface)_ and his grin was infectious to Shaggy, who before the shot to his legs could delight easily in such things as well, but had a little trouble with it afterwords—lest he was with Crystal or Dick or even Barbara. Then it was a little easier.

Elevator in sight, Shaggy upped his pace once one of the doors opened a moment and they both saw a red faced, screaming twenty-something woman with her legs up in stirrups and her vagina turning purple, pushing outwards an Oreo sized whiteness that would soon become an entire head and shoulders and legs through what so far was only a space as big as a closed fist.

Dick raised a hand to the side of his face to keep out any other “wonderful, blessed” sights he might accidentally see, almost slamming into Shaggy when his friend stopped at the elevator and started clicking his long pointer finger on the downwards facing arrow button like a woodpecker on rock cocaine and crystal heroine.

When the woman with the red face and the stirrups screamed so loud it ricocheted off the walls outside her door, Dick cleared his throat and inquired in a normal a voice he could without cracking it from nerves and absolute pity for the woman, “Since the police have most of your building taped off until the cleaning crew can get every bit of body matter out of there, is there somewhere I can take you until then? The hotel Crystal's renting, maybe--”

The elevator rang and opened, both of them hopping in instantaneously, Dick being the first to punch down on the first floor button while Shaggy responded in typical Shaggy fashion, “Oh, oh, please take me to lunch. Please. I haven't eaten anything in twenty-four hours except those ice chips made from the water here that taste like it's been ultra-sterilized from everything but the metal it all tastes like and those donuts and coffee you brought in.”

Dick hummed, considering. On the one hand, Shaggy without a meal could look like a walking skeleton really so quickly it was frightening, but on the other hand, lack of food meant he might try and eat himself to death like some Roman emperor in the days of Nero and Caesar or a Viking seven feet tall after a successful battle.

“...Okay, but first something to drink. That way if you eat too much, I'll have some warning before you puke your guts out all over the table.”

“Ha, just take me to light brunch and I won't ruin those nice designer clothes of yours.”

“Light?”

“...Well, light for _me_.”

Which roughly translated to half a Reno sized buffet ensemble, complete with multiple styles of eggs, two pounds of bacon, ham and mini-steaks, salads with all the trimmings, three plates of citrus and tropical fruit and at least a desert archaeologist sized gallon of both milk and juice.

They hit the lobby room floor and departed the over-sized dumb-waiter at a normal pace and Dick offered an almost yes, “As long as you don't eat too much meat. Crystal would kill me if she knew I was allowing you to clog your organs with grease.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let it be known that while I did do research on the Bone Dust mentioned above, I am not an expert, and this is fiction. If it's used improperly, then it's just to further the story. Plus there's something sort of poetic about it, so of course I had to use it.


	6. And All Those Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The main couple and the main event that is a relatively normal week of domestic activities. Although, normalcy in moderation only goes so far with this couple.

_-:-_  
_Loves and hearts are such untidy things._  
_-Observing the Formalities, Neil Gaiman._  
  
_-:-_  
_And my madness was swallowed by what happened after._  
_-Witch Work, Neil Gaiman._  
  
_-:-_  
_It's accurate but it isn't profound. Of course, it doesn't aim to be profound. It's not even a case study. It's a set of guidelines, a generalization._  
_-Girl, Interrupted; Susanna Kaysen._

 

* * *

 **  
  
Monday** : _Hello_ -:-  
  
The mallet over the boss lady's shoulder was bigger than certain chainsaws Ghoul had seen Chucko carry around on occasion when Joker wanted someone taken out messy and with an obvious statement to the war front back in the old days _(before Chucko got himself dead as dandelion fluff)_ , but perhaps a dull weapon was more intimidating when the woman was having him herd out the other Jokerz and leaving him instructions that he would follow, absolutely.  
  
The pinstriped red suit she'd chosen for the day accented her legs and what little their was of her chest as she took each step of the staircase slowly and deliberately, cold eyes observing Ghoul and some of the lower ranked members of the gang as they tip-toed out the front door and some launched themselves out of the meeting room that was, once upon a time, a dining room. Ghoul tried not to groan when he saw Top Hat and Scab actually toss themselves out of a window on the tail end of Joker yelling something back at his wife about a recent incident not being his fault—it wasn't his fault he was immune to Poison Oak and she wasn't.  
  
“I expect we'll have our little tizzy over and done with in a few days time; if for no other reason than I will be going to the country house until Puddin' Dearest,” she lowered her voice by an octave and Ghoul was suddenly picturing those bodies the boss man and his kids and his wife had dragged out to the middle of nowhere like they were playing Easter Egg hunt with themselves and the police and just when Joker had touched Poison Oak and where he spread it to Harley to get her this pissed off at him; not a pleasant thought since he didn't see it on her hands or face and she hadn't been scratching her arms or stomach so the few places worse popped up to the forefront of his mental movie screen. If Joker spread a painful rash where Ghoul had a feeling he spread a rash, he deserved this so much it didn't even bother the blonde that everyone else would be skittish around the Napier's for weeks to come, “Actually says he's sorry. If anyone needs money, you know where the emergency funds are and you're welcome to it as long as it's completely necessary.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
He fiddled with a string on the inside of his black hoodie to take his mind off of the calculations that usually flitted through the back of his skull whenever the two had a fight. The property damage to their home rarely touched beyond a thousand dollars, but if it went further this time _(man, the boss was boss for a reason and Ghoul would never open his mouth to question him, but really, Harley had just as bad a temper as he did, just with a longer, thicker fuse)_ there was some old building equipment in one of their safe houses. He also considered quietly over where he was going to stay for three days, since everyone was likely to crash at his place or hotels in spirit but still drop in to give him a headache.  
  
He could already picture Prank digging into his movie collection, four other Jokerz buzzing in the background out of his way and the twins flipping a coin over playing the movie in foreign language or with audio commentary. The horror.  
  
“Make sure my girl's don't ruin your couch and if they do, you tell me so I can give their ears a good chewing. Bud and Lou will be going with them, so they shouldn't get into much trouble and when we want you back, they'll let you know you can kick everyone else out of your nest.”  
  
_Shit... Or...uh... hmm._  
  
“Thank you, ma'am.”  
  
“Oh, and Ghoul?”  
  
She paused just before the entrance to the meeting room, mallet off of her shoulder, swinging back and forth above the floor like a splintered pendulum, one of her sleek eyebrows curved up and an almost-nice grin stretching one side of her face. He knew that look and tried to resist taking a step back in case she reached out to punch his shoulder like she was a teenager and give him a dead arm so he'd lighten up a little.  
  
She didn't reach out, though, thank god, “Yes?”  
  
She tucked her hand—careful, careful, slow; a big red flag which meant he acknowledged at least one location the Poison Oak had settled—into her blouse and fished out a slip of paper with a, doubtless, disposable burn phone number jotted down, red marker under the numbers that said, FOR GHOUL ONLY, BRATS and handed it over to the younger blonde.  
  
“If you need some peace and quiet for a while during my absence, text me and I'll give you the access codes to one of the safe houses. You can crash there if the others start making you doubt life or...other reasons.”  
  
That grin on her was entirely too friendly for the radiant aura of _infinitely-pissed-off_ cascading off of her, but he took the intent and innuendo with a grain of salt when he took the slip from her and she dismissed him, his steps cautious and slow and moving in the opposite direction of the woman who had the same pace but with the sounds of the mallet whistling as she started swinging it in a casual circle—almost like the scythe carrying jester, the gypsy king, at Victor Hugo's battle of Notre Dame, singing as he cut down horses and soldiers alike.  
  
Which was the green light for him to leave the building before he got caught in what was likely to be her beating her husband, which was a switch from their usual dynamic.  
  
He slipped the paper into the pocket with his wallet and whistled a light tune from French radio waves he'd picked up a couple weeks ago riding with Terry; a heavy and destructive thud from inside cut off the middle notes, but he didn't much mind.  
  
**Tuesday** : _Bonjour_ -:-  
  
There's a paperback book stuffed inside the hole of his toilet and the Napier children, Woof and Saiko were all half-asleep, half-awake on Ghoul's sofa, with the television showcasing Daphne Blake and Gordon Godfrey trying to verbally murder each other while maintaining a cordial physical display, both of them dubbed in French-Spanish-Japanese-Czech-Croation...  
  
Ghoul marched out to the living room and took the remote away from Prank, the boy's sleep-twitching almost hard enough to break the appliance, which he really didn't need on his way to pick up his boyfriend.  
  
Zipping up the opening of his jacket and tying his hair into a tight ponytail, Ghoul skittered out of the way when Bud came out from the kitchen, slow and sleepy like some fat country cow to take his usual position under the coffee table and the lanky man paused when Lou followed behind, carefully, with Ghoul's practically unused coffee carrier in his maw, two fully prepared travel flasks in the carrier, steaming up into the animal's face as he paused. Ghoul blinked down and Lou lifted his head pointedly, his own eyes flicking from Ghoul to the coffee and back, huffing with a little exasperation.  
  
“My breakfast?”  
  
_Whine-Groan_.  
  
Ghoul hummed much like a parent that didn't know whether to be grateful or exasperated, turning the TV back to English and tossing the remote into one of the drawers of the kitchen counters and then took the carrier and the coffee from the hyena, the animal's teeth shiny and breath not at all rancid _(having a crazy owner sometimes had quite the number of benefits, including annual check-ups and food/treats that kept the pets in top health)_ when he let go, “Thank you, though I hope you, somehow, turned off the electric coffee maker?”  
  
Lou huffed and rolled his eyes, trotting out to his usual spot next to Bud, head passing by Prank and Deidre's akimbo legs and arms, rubbing his head and tail against them before sitting down just as Daphne Blake said goodbye to the station's viewers, G. Gordon Godfrey thanking that week's sponsors “The Wayne Foundation” and “Mystery Inc. Bookshop”.  
  
“Okay...thank you for the thought, I know Terry would be grateful... there's none of your hair in this, is there?”  
  
Both hyenas growled and Ghoul dropped the issue as he looked for his keys.

* * *

  
“It's not exactly a romantic gesture, but I need to know if it's a good place to hangout while Harley's gone and my place is infected with parasites.”  
  
Terry sipped from his own drink, liking that it wasn't Ghoul's usual butchering of the coffee, sludge dragging along the bottom, and instead cinnamon floating on top with the residue of marshmallows and some kind of sweetening flavor shot, like almond Rocha or cool amaretto, “Your boss lady's pets seriously make these?”  
  
“Lou, not Bud. Damn, this place looks good, even with all the dust that's accumulated.”  
  
Terry nooded absently as he and his boyfriend coasted through the sort-of riverfront townhouse that Ghoul might have alluded to have previously been one of the Napier's home's until Joker got bored and they moved again. It was sort of an in-between of a warehouse and those weird mini-houses Victorian's used some hundred-more years ago where they kept gardeners to live so they didn't have to look at or interact with them all that much. Very clean open space almost as palatial as Wayne Manor, spread windows all along the ceiling and sort-of granite beams stationed in rows that led up to the stairs that accented the brownstone floor. Ghoul said that they'd find the kitchen and the bedrooms and decide on their next moves from there.  
  
The only downside so far was that whoever had cleared the place out had forgotten the posters and written notes and calendar stuffs tacked and taped to the walls. Most of them lead Terry to believe the place had been occupied when the twins were, like, twelve, given that most of the posters had pop stars and movie celebrities that Joker had used sharp, scary objects to jab the eyes of and markers to color red marks across their mouths and throats. Which would have seemed creepy in the beginning of Terry and Ghoul's time together but had the grossness taken away by the maternal touch of what must have been Harley putting sticky notes in the more gruesome areas, the purple and blue and pink paper notes having little suggestions and orders here and there that made Terry snort and Ghoul realize why he preferred the woman to...the entire lot of the rest of the family before the girls became less tolerable and Donnie came along.  
  
“Wow, you weren't kidding,” Terry spoke around the rim of his drink, pulling a blue sticky off the wall that had a really old coffee ring along the bottom left corner that bled into the obviously displeased, swiftly written handwriting, “Insults and marital suggestions like this, Joker must put a lot of effort into keeping Harley happy enough to put up with his shit nine months of the year. _'Do not set the babies on fire when I'm out with the Russian to clear up this stupid diamond thing with Sage, Ryder and Godfrey or your can order Chinese takeout with your dry cleaning money.'_ Continual beatings and other stuff notwithstanding.”  
  
Ghoul reeled back over from wandering too far from Terry, reaching to hold his hand when he dropped the very informal sticky note and the younger reciprocated. It was a nice comfortable thing that had developed between them after they'd hit beyond their eleventh month together and Ghoul was happy enough for any excuse to pull Terry out of the way in case Joker left behind booby traps he'd neglected to tell his wife about.  
  
“Makes you really reconsider the real value of the nuclear family, doesn't it?” Terry continued as they ascended the stairs for the master bedroom, tilted his head and nuzzling a line along his nose, cheek, ear and left a little peck at the tip of his cartilage.  
  
Ghoul 'hmm'ed' at the mental image and innuendo there, sipping from his own drink and swallowing what was left of his marshmallows, stepping over a collapsed step in the staircase and helping Terry over the same, “Hmph, give me late nights with my guy, and quiet outings without the hassle of kids for the first decade or so—or forever. From what I've experienced, _this_ is better.”  
  
“Aw, that's sweet.”  
  
“But it can't last,” Ghoul hesitated on the next step, but lifted his leg three steps up and then continued, “If the beds don't have coverlets or sheets, we can pick some up from your place and bring them back here later. If they do, can we shake them off and have sex?”  
  
“You need to ask?”  
  
“From that tone, I guess I don't.”  
  
**Thursday** : _What's Up-:-_  
  
“Oh my God, how can you eat this Japanese tofu crap? I think all of my taste-buds are screaming in agony.”  
  
Ghoul chewed and chewed and swallowed hard on whatever the crap was that he'd picked up with his chopsticks from the plastic carrier he'd gotten out of his fridge that the interlopers in his apartment hadn't touched.  
  
He would have preferred to be eating half naked in bed with Terry at the hideaway Harley had given him, but he had a feeling the day before that some of the others were too bored and had started stalking him like mock assassins, so he didn't want to lead them to where he had been staying over the last thirty-some hours lest they decide to destroy that sanctuary as well. Thus, they would stay in his real apartment for the day until they couldn't stand the smell of burnt tofu if they had sex again (not likely) or Terry received another badgering call from one of his brothers about spending too much time in 'enemy territory' bullshit.  
  
“I usually don't, but Terminal left it for anyone who wanted it and nobody else did, so this was the only thing in the fridge that was both without mold and not, like a mustard bottle or that baking soda packet I forgot even existed.”  
  
Terry dropped his chopsticks inside his carton of sushi and rice and rolled over from lying flat stomach on the sheets to land in the same position atop Ghoul still trying to tongue rice and whatever seasoning was on it out from behind his teeth, “We're eating something made by Terminal?”  
  
“No,” Ghoul insisted, noting the usual tone of distaste Terry often still had when Carter was brought up in conversations between them, in bed, intimate or otherwise, “Terminal left it behind. He got it from work where that Nissa chick or his boss made it. Lots of left-overs.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
The _'I Can See Why'_ didn't need to be voiced aloud.  
  
“...Wanna put pants and stuff on and go out for some real food?”  
  
The answer to that came with a thud sounding in Ghoul's bedroom dustbin as he tossed Terry's carrier and his own into it and he reached under the bed for where they'd both left their underwear.  
  
**Friday** : _Yo-Yo-Yiggidy-Yo-:-_  
  
Orange roses.  
  
The tips of Shaggy's fingers itched from where the flowers Dick had brought him had pricked and stuck just under his skin for a few seconds, so he rubbed them against his palms and then the little green lace ribbon Dick had used to bind the bouquet and then he rubbed them over Scooby's forehead for touch that would actually work. And, surprise, since the giant Dane hadn't been forced into a bath by Crystal in a few weeks, the dirt and grease caked on him did the trick.  
  
“Should I bring you flowers sometimes, or is this strictly a thing that is an attachment to your moods?”  
  
“Oh, come on,” Dick hummed from his side of the couch, legs on the backrest and head nearly level with the floor as he held some of Shaggy's paperwork over his head like a five year old with a new toy plane, “You need something floral in your apartment now that fumigation has demolished your little windowsill garden. They're more for Crystal and Amber than you and Scooby. And since Amber keeps eating the ones Velma brings you, I'm what you'd call a last hope.”  
  
“Ah,” the detective smiled, lifting a paperweight _(half a glass ball cut down the middle with configurations of auburn ivy etched into the inside and outside)_ off of a larger file and onto the part of the ribbon of the bouquet that was just long enough to keep it grounded on the hardwood coffee table. He would have it claimed so Scooby and Baskervilles—wherever the little runt was—didn't try and steal and eat them or, worse, bury them in the back yard with Alfred's precious Peace Rose bushes, “I'm sure having something only half dead is better than having mildew's rot—speaking of which, Fred and Daphne need my opinion on that Louisiana case as soon as possible and I need someone's opinion that is more rational than mine before I report back. So...”  
  
Dick raised his head to look up at his friend, both of them quietly ignoring the sounds of pacing outside the living area that had been going on for about an hour, definitely Terry waiting for his usual phone call that came around at that time, “I think it might be interesting, but, then, this is a lot of people missing without having back-up waiting in the wings to fly in if things go to shit--”  
  
“No, no, no. no, no! Not back there! We are going right out—now, right now. Not in there—this way, thank you.”  
  
“Terry, calm down; you're gonna give yourself a heart--”  
  
The front door knockers clacked and clanged against the wood as they both shut behind Terry and his boyfriend, Scooby getting up to go and pick up Baskervilles as the smaller canine ran past to see if there was a small chance to get out and chase birds pecking fallen leaves and tree seeds out in the yard. Dick yanked himself up, willing to get over the numbness of blood rushing back in the right direction after his legs had fallen asleep and he and Shaggy looked out the main windows of the room.  
  
“Aw, that is so cute.”  
  
Fall colors of dark brown, red and black looked good on Terry and Ghoul as the younger Wayne tugged Ghoul towards the older man's car. Ghoul's hair wasn't tied, but was lax and he swiped it behind his ears as Terry went from pulling at him and then stepped behind, pushing his rear so he would go faster.  
  
A pile of leaves that Matt hadn't already exploited to land in tripped Terry up for a second, red and yellow slickery with rain from a couple days ago and Terry would have—could have—fallen on his face but Ghoul bent forward; momentum helping and allowing Terry onto his back before he pulled back up.  
  
Terry appeared to wonder how the hell he ended up being carried by the lazy bones from where Shaggy and Dick stood looking down on them, but didn't struggle out of position, just letting Ghoul carry him the rest of the way to the car.  
  
Dick hummed the outline tune to one of the songs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and pretended not to be pleased at how this particular relationship turned out for the better over the last year and a half. Shaggy allowed him to pretend and they both got back to the paperwork, humming in-sync with each other.  
  
Both of them, however, flinch at the annoying honk that followed Ghoul's car out of the driveway, possibly meant to annoy Damian while he was sleeping off a hangover from the night before after getting in a fight that both younger men knew about but the elder didn't want mentioned despite the obvious.  
  
The window that looked out from Damian's room broke outwards with something being thrown out of it—probably his alarm clock.  
  
Perfect start to the morning, from what the loud laughter leaving the driveway implied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG, I think my eyes need band-aids. Three weeks staring at a computer with nothing and then "BOOM" inspiration comes at midnight on a Monday. Please let this not have sucked, please. I can't even tell.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a conversation Twilight and I had about coffee.
> 
> Because I feel like OYtL doesn't get enough attention, I am hoping to correct that. It’s good and well written and considerate of all Warner Bros. and DC connections, while keeping the main relationship of the title characters realistic and easy to look at without losing interest. I can only hope that whoever has gotten to these notes is at least moderately interested in the universe, so go and read One Year to Love. Right. Now. Please.


End file.
